


Always

by clarkeneedsbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1834345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarkeneedsbellamy/pseuds/clarkeneedsbellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I need you,” she’ll say on occasion.</p>
<p>“I want you,” he’ll say plenty.</p>
<p>But this particular night, when Bellamy finds Clarke leaning against a tree stump with her knees huddled against her chest, he figures out pretty damn fast that neither want nor need are going to cut it this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

“I need you,” she’ll say on occasion.

“I want you,” he’ll say plenty.

But this particular night, when Bellamy finds Clarke leaning against a tree stump with her knees huddled against her chest, he figures out pretty damn fast that neither  _want_  nor  _need_ are going to cut it this time. 

Clarke’s head doesn’t jerk towards him until his feet snap down – half intentionally — against a twig.  As she rubs the heel of her palm against her eyes, he vetoes his original plan of demanding to know  _what the hell_ she’d been thinking heading out into the woods at night without back-up. 

(He’d seethed more than his share about it at camp, jaw tight and fists clenching as he strode towards the wall.  Octavia had just rolled her eyes.  “ _Please,”_ she’d muttered. _“Clarke can handle herself and you know it.  You’re just pissed she didn’t ask you to go with her.”_ )

“Hey.”  Clarke’s eyes are still wet when she tries to smile at him.  Bellamy doesn’t point it out.  “Before you start in, I did bring back-up.”  Groping at her side, her hand reappears a moment later clenched around a gun.  “See?  Fully prepared.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, and crouches down beside her.  “Packing a gun when you decide to take a late night stroll through the woods by yourself isn’t backup.  That’s common sense.”

Clarke spares him an eye roll of her own.  “Right.”  Orphaning the posture she’d scrambled to perfect a moment earlier, she slumps back against the bark. 

“But I’m not here to chew you out for that.”

Slanting her head towards him, she raises an eyebrow.  “So you’re here to chew me out for something else?”

Bellamy chokes on a snigger.  _Been spending time with Octavia lately, Princess?_ He manages to swallow the question in favor of something more cautious.  “Just checking to make sure you’re alright.”

“Well, I am.”

Nodding, Bellamy kicks his legs out in front of him.  “That’s bullshit.”   The words drop from his mouth without any inflection, bland as the Ark’s bread.

An incredulous glare dries Clarke’s eyes with record speed.  “Excuse me?”

“Clarke, you’ve got plenty of strengths.  Lying isn’t one of them.”

She opens her mouth to protest, only to ease her lips shut a breath later and her forehead down upon his shoulder.  “Wells used to tell me that.  All the time.  I always told him he was worse.”  Lifting her temple slightly, she looks up at him and drags her lower lip back between her teeth.  “Which is ironic, given that when it actually mattered, I never even considered he might be telling me anything but the truth.”

Tension stretches its way through Bellamy’s limbs, even as he moves a palm against Clarke’s leg in what he hopes passes for comfort.  Wells is nothing but a face to him; nothing more than a stubborn streak, a self-righteous bent, and – at the time – an unwelcome ghost of the man he’d just tried to kill.  Sure, he could probably spew a few empty words of comfort, but they’d be just that.  Empty, pointless, and useless to Clarke.

So he keeps sitting there, stroking a slow pattern against her knee and relaxing his shoulder against the weight of her head.

After a moment left silent save for the rustle of leaves against the wind, Clarke opens her mouth again, and Bellamy figures he made the right call.  “Today would have been his birthday.”  Another muted second.  “I think.  It’s not— I’m not precisely sure of the date down here, but either way…”  She trails off with a shrug.

Bellamy doesn’t need her to continue.  He may not have had much of a relationship with Wells, but understands guilt just fine.

Her sigh slips against the sleeve of his jacket.  “And you know the worst part?  I should be sad for  _him_ right now – for everything he’ll never get the chance to do.  That’s not why I’m crying.  I’m crying because  _I_  lost my best friend.”  She chances a look at him.  “Does that make me an awful person?”

“You’re asking me if missing your friend makes you an awful person.”  He tries to soften the deadpan note from his tone with little success.

“No, I’m asking you if making his death  _about me_  makes me a terrible person.”  Her eyes dart from his to trace the stars.  “Sometimes, I’m not sure whether I’m sad that he’s gone or just completely furious he’s not here.”

Bark scrapes against his hair with each shake of his head.  “You’re overthinking this.  Compartmentalizing is all well and good – hell, a lot of the time it’s necessary — but it is possible to be both.” 

He’d know.  Grief, guilt, fury had warred for reign over him after his mother had been killed and his sister locked away.  They’d all won to some degree.  Bellamy drags his head harder against the tree bark to shake the memory away.

Gaze still tilted towards the sky, Clarke curves her fingers around the back of his hand.  “I know I can’t do this — breaking down like this, it’s not practical.  And I know we’re going to lose more people.  Statistically, it’s impossible that we won’t lose more people.” She moves away from his shoulder to shudder against the slope of the tree. 

“Well, sorry to disappoint, Princess, but you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.”  His palm rolls against her leg to meet hers.

Face falling straight back down against his jacket, she hiccups a laugh.

Banter works its way to the tip of Bellamy’s tongue.  He grinds it away against the backs of his teeth.  “Clarke.”

He feels her nod against his chest.  “Hm?”

“I mean it.”  His thumb kneads the curve of her hand in slow circles.  “I’m not going anywhere.  Not now.  Not ever.  And I’m sure as hell not letting you go anywhere.”

(And if he thinks she murmurs  _I love you too_ against his zipper, well, that’s probably just exhaustion.)


End file.
